


Deja Vu

by bellatemple



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-02
Updated: 2008-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 22:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/288480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellatemple/pseuds/bellatemple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gives Dean his leather jacket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deja Vu

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little exploration of what was probably my favorite concept from "In the Beginning".

The Christmas after Sam leaves, Dean gets thrown into a display of push-mowers and weedwhackers and ruins his denim jacket. Damn near ruins his arm, too, and John spends the next several hours stitching his son up before they can hit the road. They're due at Pastor Jim's for the annual Christian guilt session, then planning to stay north -- there's ghost-ship activity on Lake Ontario, a possible revenant in North Dakota. The stores are all closed, and there's no time to hit up a homeless center for donations, and Dean's shivering hard in two flannels and a henley over his long underwear. The Impala's heater blows warmth at them straight from the engine, but Dean's already starting to try and stiffle a sniffle when they stop for gas.

John pops the trunk once he's got the nozzle in place, digs around through his duffle bag until he finds the thing: his old leather jacket, brown and scarred and just too tight in the shoulders, these days, just too small to close over his gut, which has been expanding at an almost embarrassing rate since he hit 40. He shakes it out and gives it a quick once over. The lining'll probably take almost as many stitches as Dean's arm did, but they'll have time for that at Jim's when they're not being tutted over and lectured at by the older parishoners. He folds it over his arm as the pump clicks off, shuts the trunk, replaces the nozzle, and ignores the message telling him that his phony credit card's receipt is available with the nonexistant teller.

Dean looks up from his huddle as John climbs back into the car, starts folding up the map he's got spread across his knees, then frowns when his eyes land on the jacket. John wants to smile at that look, but doesn't, just holds the jacket out.

The clock on the dash ticks over to midnight.

"Merry Christmas, Dean."

"Uh, yeah," Dean says, and he takes the jacket, leaning forward to slip it on and hissing softly at the cold leather collar hitting the back of his neck. It fits him, in a loose way that gives him the illusion of more bulk than he really has, and John does smile, thinking that the jacket suits him, worn and a little ragged, just an air of danger. Then Dean shifts and reaches up to pop the collar and John sucks in a silent breath.

He's seen this before. He can't begin to place where and when, but he can almost picture it, that jacket, Dean's face, a figure bending over the engine of the Impala on a sunny day. The word "cherry" pops into his head, and he wonders why he's thinking of his son in conjunction with fifties hot rodder slang, why the whole mental image, as blurry and faded as it is, seems tinged with hope and regret and the ghost of pain in shoulders and neck.

Dean looks at him, and the image sharpens, and then Dean says "What? I got something on my face?" and the memory is gone, leaving a hollow place behind it that shaded with melancholy and smells faintly of _Mary_ and _youth_ and a few things he can't identify.

"I know I'm hot," Dean says, "but you're getting a little skeevy there, Dad."

"You look --" John starts, and Dean's face falls, then rises back up into a blank, cocky mask that's becoming more and more familiar since Sam left, and he says "Oh," and turns to stare out the front window.

 _Like someone I used to know,_ John thinks, but that's not quite it. _Like someone I met once,_ might be better. _Like me and your mother combined. Like my son._

He shakes it off and slides in behind the wheel. "We got about five more hours to Blue Earth," he says. "Get some sleep." And Dean nods and slinks lower in the seat, turning his face into the collar.

He thinks it's just deja vu, but it takes four months before Dean in the jacket is just Dean, and not some half forgotten stranger in a car lot, who loved the Impala enough to convince John to love it, too.


End file.
